Related Links

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. – The No. 13 Stanford varsity won two more races on Saturday to sweep the Stanford Invitational at Redwood Shores Lagoon.

The Cardinal started the day with a win over No. 12 Wisconsin and finished with a convincing win over the University of San Diego in the afternoon. Coupled with the win over UCSD on Friday night, the Stanford 1V8 went 3-0 in its home regatta and has won four straight races.

“It is always fun to host a race and have teams come to our home course,” said sophomore coxswain Nathalie Weiss. “We had some exciting results against challenging opponents.”

Stanford got off to strong starts in each of its races on Saturday. The Cardinal took the lead early on Wisconsin and slowly crept further and further ahead during the first 1,000 meters. Once they gained the lead, the Cardinal was able to maintain it in the second half of the race for the three-second victory. The official time was 5:56.4 for Stanford and 5:59.5 for Wisconsin.

The afternoon race was against the University of San Diego. Another strong start pushed the Cardinal out in front early. Once they were able to take the lead they stretched it to open water and cruised onward for a 29.5-second margin of victory.

“It is good to cap off three weeks straight of racing with three wins this weekend,” said junior Kaess Smit. “With all the flying and racing we did the last two weeks, it was nice to get some wins here at home and now have the rest of the weekend off.”

After traveling to San Diego and Washington the last two weekends, it was good for the Cardinal rowers to compete in their first home meet of the season. They will have a chance to rest up and focus on school work as they have Saturday evening and all of Easter Sunday off. It is the first full day off in over a month for the Stanford men. The off day has been on Mondays, but they still have full class schedules to attend to.

Despite the string of four straight victories for the varsity eight, they know they have some improvements to make over the next two weeks as they prepare for Cal in the Big Row.

“We still have a lot of work to do these next two weeks as we still try to figure out lineups with all the new guys we have,” said Smit. “We need to take the time off from racing these next two weeks and figure out how to gain some more speed.”

The 2V8 and frosh eight each split two races on Saturday, losing to Wisconsin in the morning but taking home victories in the afternoon. The second varsity eight posted a near 12-second win over USD with a time of 6:12.4. The frosh eight faced UC Davis in the final race of the weekend for Stanford. It was all Cardinal as they posted a 6:24.6 to capture a win by 27.5 seconds.

Stanford will have two weeks off before they conclude the regular season with the annual Big Row vs. Cal on Saturday, May 3 at Redwood Shores.